their land could be turned over from agriculture to pleasure.
But the lawn wasn’t unproductive, originally. It was being grazed by sheep and horses, which were higher value agricultural products.
Comment on NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE
Denjin@feddit.uk 1 week ago
Large grass lawns were a sign of wealth and power for the aristocracy and gentry from the feudal system. When they had large numbers of serfs working their small plots of land and paid a tithe to the landowners it meant that their land could be turned over from agriculture to pleasure.
Growing a big, unproductive, biologically inactive lawn is basically saying “I have so many peasants I don’t need to grow vegetables” and then morphed into the quasi status symbol we have today for suburbanites to complain about each other’s while the planet dies around them.
Horsecook@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world 6 days ago
originally
It depends on how far back you go. Maybe an actual historian could chime in on dates, but by at least the 18th century one of the distinguishing hallmarks between “real rich” and “fake rich” was whether sheep, and the like, were what maintained your lawn or if you had dedicated human labor to scything and weeding.
huf@hexbear.net 1 week ago
yeah but i think originally at least they used sheep as lawnmowers, so at least it didnt go entirely to waste